Psychology at Goldsmiths

Dr. Gordon Wright

Our new curriculum

Our new curriculum in 2024-25

Teaching themes that reflect you:

  • Mental Health and Wellbeing
  • Cognition and Culture
  • Life and Society

Our new curriculum

Teaching themes that reflect you, plus:

  • Research methods and statistics
  • Professional and personal development
  • Focus on applied and personal/real-world relevance of psychology

Mental Health & Wellbeing

  • Clinical Psychology
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Education
  • Forensic Psychology
  • Positive Psychology
  • Atypical Development
  • Neurodiversity

Research and practice informed teaching

Dr Hilary Norman

Dr Lucy Oldfield

Mental Health and Wellbeing

  • What does it mean to be happy?
  • How does sleep affect our wellbeing?
  • How do our thoughts influence our emotions?

Research and practice informed teaching

Dr Hilary Norman

Dr Lucy Oldfield

Mental Health and Wellbeing

  • Make an individual wellbeing plan
  • Experience how our beliefs influence our behaviours and emotions by taking part in a behavioural experiment

Cognition & Culture

  • Perception
  • Attention
  • Memory
  • Art
  • Language
  • Action
  • Sport Psychology
  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Evolutionary Psychology
  • Development

Research and practice informed teaching

Prof Joydeep Bhattacharya

Dr Rebecca Chamberlain

Cognition and Culture

  • Does living in an urban environment affect our attention?
  • Do artists see the world in a different way?
  • How does AI affect our sense of agency?

Research and practice informed teaching

Prof Joydeep Bhattacharya

Dr Rebecca Chamberlain

Cognition and Culture

  • Create a video explaining how to measure brain and behaviour to the public
  • Write a reflective piece on what it would mean if free will was an illusion

Life & Society

  • Developmental Science
  • Educational Neuroscience
  • Behavioural Genetics
  • Individual differences
  • Cross cultural Psychology
  • Social Psychology
  • Personality
  • Relationships
  • Media Psychology
  • Evolutionary Psychology
  • Political Psychology

Research and practice informed teaching

Life and Society

  • Can music boost language acquisition?
  • What are the ethical implications of genetic testing?
  • What are psychological incentives and obstacles to social justice?

Research and practice informed teaching

Prof Alice Jones

Dr Sinead Rocha

Life and Society

  • Write a policy brief on the importance of the First 1001 days of life
  • Develop a research proposal investigating inter-group conflict management

Professional & Personal Development

  • Learning how to learn
  • Personal Tutoring
  • Group Work preparing for assessments linked in with themes

Research Methods

  • Learning how to code in R
  • Participating in and running qualitative and quantitative research
  • Journaling your progress week-by-week

What does teaching look like?

Example: Year 1 Term2, Life & Society: Growing Up

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Independent study Lecture: What is development? Goldsmiths Connected Curriculum: Identity, environment and agency Research Methods Lecture Independent study
Developmental Cascades (seminar) Seminar PPD: Exploring careers that support children and families
Lecture: Infancy Societies! Research Methods Lab: Data Skills – Experimental Design
Seminar: First 1001 Days Independent Study

Timetable

Example weekly timetable

Curating your degree

  • Year 1: Assessments tailored to your interests and experience
  • Year 2: Group project work
  • Year 3: Free choice of optional modules including:

Addictive Behaviours / Neuropsychology / Psychology of the Arts / Behavioural Genetics / Psychology and Law / Coding / Clinical Psychology / Neurodevelopmental Disorders / Psychology and Education / Cognitive Neuroscience

Year 3 projects

  • Experiences of students with ASD in mainstream school
  • The relationship between procrastination and wellbeing
  • The role of music in advertising
  • Perceptions of doping in competitive sport
  • How line-ups affect eye-witness testimony
  • Perceptions of stalking: when do behaviours cross the line?

Curating your degree

  • Taking a stream subject: Clinical Psychology, Forensic Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Join a research lab (e.g, GoldAge, Forensic Unit, EquaLab, EEG, brain stimulation)
  • Departmental research talks
  • 4-year degree with placement in 3rd year: Staff support you to secure placements in clinical / social care / educational / forensic

Connected Curriculum and college-wide modules

Year 1: Identity, Environment and Agency

  • Taught by lecturers from a range of departments
  • Covers societally relevant topics such as AI, feminism, decolonising education
  • You choose the assessment format: essay, video, music, poster, audio presentation

Connected Curriculum and college-wide modules

Year 2: two elective modules

  • Choose modules from other Departments across college: sociology, anthropology, music, computing, therapeutic studies, management school etc
  • You can also choose one or both of your electives from Psychology

Psychology at Goldsmiths

  • All programmes are BPS accredited: first stepping stone for a career in psychology
  • Campus-based learning: all sessions are on the same site student accommodation on or near campus

Psychology at Goldsmiths

  • Research-active department:
    • Staff are experts in their field
    • Students get involved in running research
  • Small cohort sizes: get to know fellow students and staff small-group and 1-to-1 teaching range of assessments individual feedback

Research-informed teaching

Research-informed teaching

Get involved in our research groups:

  • Cognition and Neuroscience
  • Developmental and Educational Science
  • Forensic and Clinical Science
  • Social Processes and Personality
  • Science of the Creative and Performing Arts

Research facilities

  • Neuroscience lab EEG / TMS / fNIRs
  • Eye Tracking Lab
  • Physiology
  • Infant Lab
  • Multimedia Lab
  • Forensic lab interview observation cubicles

Research in society

Study environment

Study environment

Excellence in teaching and research

  • THE World University Rankings 2023 Top 150 of Psychology departments worldwide
  • Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 82% of our research rated world-leading / internationally excellent
  • Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) 2021 1st in country for social mobility
  • Goldsmiths student union teaching awards

Study environment

Varied teaching

  • Lectures
  • Tutorials and seminars
  • Personal tutor sessions
  • Lab classes
  • One-to-one sessions

Varied assessment focused around skills for employability

Personal tutor throughout your studies

Study environment

Psychology society: film clubs, social events, study groups

Thank you